This patent application relates generally to an apparatus for mass producing helical vegetable strips, and specifically to a rotating cutter used on such an apparatus. French fried potatoes and other vegetables of generally spiral or helical shape have become increasingly popular. Consumers like them because of their interesting appearance, and they are appealing to institutional food providers and restauranteurs because a given volume of french fries has more plate coverage when they are of helical shape.
Systems for cutting helical french fries are currently available in the marketplace. The cutters in many of the systems are disk-like in nature; that is, the cutter which slices the potatoes or other vegetables into helical strips is generally a substantially flat or helical circular plate having a knife blade or "slabber blade" extending from the axis of rotation to the periphery of the disk. Mounted directly on the front face of the disk is a plurality of slitter blades. The slitter blades are located at different radii from the axis of rotation and sometimes are spaced with a radial pitch to one another.
The previously described rotating cutters are used in conjunction with various feed systems to feed whole potatoes into the rotating cutter. One such feeding means is a hydraulic feed system. In such a system, potatoes are placed in a hydraulic medium which is pumped through a conduit. The outlet of the conduit is positioned to be in alignment with the rotating cutter. The potatoes are transported to the rotating cutter by the hydraulic medium.
The slitter blades extending from the surface of the cutter first contact the potato and score it. The locations of the slitter blades and their spacing from each other determine the width of each helical potato strip to be cut. The slabber blade then cuts each helical strip into a desired thickness. The length of the resulting helical strip is controlled by the length of the whole potato. Preferably, the slabber blade cuts a continuous helical strip the entire length of the potato.
A problem encountered with this type of cutting system involves the repair, maintenance or replacement of the slitter blades themselves. The slitter blades are relatively thin compared to the disk and have a tendency to dull, bend or break and must be sharpened, repaired or replaced frequently, often more than once a day. The slabber blade, on the other hand, is much thicker than the slitter blades and does not dull, bend or break as easily as the slitter blades. As a result, the disk which incorporates the slabber blade has to be replaced much less frequently than the slitter blades. Since the slitter blades are mounted or affixed directly to the surface of the cutter disk in the prior art, the entire cutter disk must ordinarily be removed from the feed system in order to resharpen, repair, clean or replace one or more of the slitter blades, thus making the system completely inoperable until maintenance has been completed and the cutter disk replaced in the system. This results in an increase in down-time and a decrease in productivity.
Applicant is aware of one 2-piece rotating cutter system in the marketplace. The system, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,409, includes a disk, comprised of two separate halves which are affixed together in operation. One half of the disk contains both the slabber and slitter blades. The slabber and slitter blades are included in one set of blades with both vertical and horizontal sharpened edges. The vertical sharpened edges are the slitter blades, and the horizontal sharpened edges are the slabber blades. This system encounters the same problems noted above regarding increased downtime and decreased productivity with respect to maintenance, repair and replacement of the blades. Moreover, when only the slitter blades need to be replaced, the slabber blades must be replaced as well, and vice-versa. Furthermore, when replacing the blades, the half disk upon which the blades are mounted must also be replaced. Most of this surface material is not used to cut the potato and, thus, it does not wear out during the life of the cutter.